An assessment of social validity trends in applied behavior analysis

Research articles published during the first 31 years of Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis were assessed for reports of social validity measures. Two measures of social validity (treatment outcome and treatment acceptability) were assessed for each article. In addition, articles were assessed for the incorporation of analog versus naturalistic settings. Overall, treatment outcome and acceptability measures were reported in less than 13% of articles. In addition, studies conducted in naturalistic settings were more likely to report social validity measures than studies conducted in analog settings. Possible reasons for the deficit in the reporting of social validity measures and potential outcomes of this deficit are discussed.